[rt.gpl-violations.org #576] Update on Riverbed Steelhead appliance

[Federico Di Gregorio]

First of all, sorry for the cross-post to both rt and legal but I don't
know where I am supposed to send updates to this possible violation.

A Product Manager of Telena S.p.A., the company that distributes
Riverbed products here in Italy finally answered my email and here is
the interesting part of his email:

        2) Non ritengo possibile accedere ai sorgenti del software, in
        quanto protetti da copyright. Tutti gli aggiornamenti anche a
        livello di kernel Linux, vengono rilasciati all'interno delle
        release RiOS fornite da Riverbed. Non è possibile scindere la
        parte di sistema operativo dal software RiOS. Si tratta di un
        prodotto "finito" e come da tale va considerato.
        
Translated to english by me:

        2) I don't think it is possible to have access to the sources of
        the software because it is protected by copyright. All updates,
        even Linux kernel ones, are released as RiOS updates by
        Riverbed. It is not possible to separate the operating system
        part from the RiOS software. It is a "complete" product and you
        should think of it as such.

Well.. he admits that the Linux kernel and the RiOS are inseparable but
they don't even recognize using Linux. Sources are definitely not
distributed with the product. This seems a clear GPL violaion to me. 

Comments?

federico

-- 
Federico Di Gregorio                         http://people.initd.org/fog
Debian GNU/Linux Developer                                fog at debian.org
INIT.D Developer                                           fog at initd.org
  Spesso crescere ed andare a vivere da soli è l'unico modo di restare
   bambini.                                             -- Alice Fontana
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
Url : http://lists.gnumonks.org/pipermail/legal/attachments/20060530/a00e8373/attachment.pgp